Nintendo to Speak at GDC About How Breath of the Wild Bucks Zelda Traditions

Nintendo announced today that it will host a Game Developers Conference (GDC) panel called “Change and Constant – Breaking Conventions with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” at 11 am on March 1 at San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

The Zelda franchise has long relied on a set formula that required each game to share a many traits in common with its predecessors, but Nintendo claims Breath of the Wild “introduces wide-ranging changes that break with many of the traditional conventions of the franchise.” The GDC conference will take a deep dive at these changes, exploring how Nintendo implemented what it says are “convention-breaking changes.”

On hand to speak to these shifts away from series tradtions will be Breath of the Wild Game Director Hidemaro Fujibayashi, Art Director Satoru Takizawa and Technical Director Takuhiro Dohta. Though GDC is an industry-only event, Nintendo plans to release a video of the panel sometime during the week of March 5.

By then, of course, the game will already be out, as Breath of the Wild launches on March 3 alongside the Nintendo Switch. If you can’t wait that long to see more of the game, check out 100 minutes of Breath of the Wild footage right now.